by David Mack
She returned the salute and felt for a moment as if she had found the brother she had never known she had always wanted. “Peace and long life, Spock.”
They stepped back from each other, raised their communicators, and opened them.
“Spock to Enterprise. One to beam up. Energize.”
Burnham watched the golden light of a transporter beam enfold Spock and vanish him in a dazzle of light and a siren’s song of white noise.
She opened her communicator with a flick of her wrist.
“Burnham to Shenzhou. One to beam up. Energize.”
Time to go home.
28
* * *
After the literal fires inside the Shenzhou had been extinguished, Georgiou dispatched more than forty of her security personnel to join forty-odd more from the Enterprise in dealing with the figurative fire on the planet’s surface. She had expected that her people would face a prolonged struggle in the underground tunnels of New Astana. Instead, the combined force had been met with a surprise: a peaceful and orderly surrender.
Less than ten minutes after beaming her people down, Lieutenant Kressel, her security officer in charge, reported that Governor Kolova and a few dozen of her accomplices were all in custody. Not a shot had been fired. No hostages had been harmed. Their demands had been met, Governor Kolova had said, when the Juggernaut was neutralized.
When the news reached the Shenzhou’s bridge, Georgiou had overheard Gant mutter to Narwani, “Well, that was anticlimactic.”
“And you thought our good luck had run out,” Narwani had said, the voice filter of her VR helmet blurring the line between sincerity and sarcasm.
Now, just a few minutes later, Georgiou stood in the central plaza of New Astana and watched dusk settle on the colonial capital. Around her, security personnel from her ship and the Enterprise escorted civilian prisoners to designated beam-out points or, for those averse to being moved via matter transmission, into recently arrived shuttlecraft. Blue-shirted medical crewmen from the Enterprise parted from their white-uniformed counterparts from the Shenzhou, all of them visibly relieved to have recovered their freedom.
From amid the crowd emerged Captain Pike. He spotted Georgiou and crossed the plaza to greet her with a smile on his face and his hand outstretched. “A pleasure to make your proper acquaintance at last, Captain.”
She shook his hand. “Likewise, Captain.” She let go of his hand and gestured at the scene around him. “Not how I thought this would go.”
“Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” Pike said. “Any crisis that can be resolved without violence is—” He abandoned his train of thought as a pair of Enterprise nurses passed him and Georgiou. The two women carried a stretcher, on which was sprawled a civilian man whose face was a swollen mass of blue and purple over broken teeth stained with blood. “Whoa. What the hell happened to him?”
“When the colonists surrendered, one of the hostages went off on him.”
Pike looked shocked. “One of our medics did that?”
“A dentist, actually.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” Understanding once again became confusion. “Hold on. What was a dentist doing on a landing party?”
Georgiou sighed and shook her head. “I have no idea.”
The Enterprise’s captain surveyed the city. “Admiral Anderson says there’s a group of large colony transports on their way from Marus III. Should be here in a few days. With a little luck, they’ll have the rest of the colonists packed and off the surface in under a month.”
“It’s a shame they need to be displaced,” Georgiou said.
“It is,” Pike said. “But if Kolova and her top people take the fall, and it looks like they will, most of these folks will be able to come back after a proper cultural survey’s been done.” He frowned. “Most of them will never know how close they came to nearly losing everything.”
“That’s probably true for all of us, at one time or another,” Georgiou said.
Her observation seemed only to deepen Pike’s somber mood. “Maybe. But it’s one thing to accept the fragility of a single life, or even a handful of lives. It’s something else to think about losing a whole planet.” He looked up at the darkening violet sky. “It seems so permanent. Almost eternal. So we take it for granted. We get careless. We forget how easy it can be to lose something so beautiful.”
“Even worse,” Georgiou said, “is to watch people put something so precious at risk for nothing more than greed. Bad enough to damage a world out of ignorance. But to do it willfully, in spite of knowing the truth . . . that’s a breed of selfishness I just can’t understand.”
Pike’s solemnity turned to melancholy. “How can it be, after all that the human race went through on Earth in the last few centuries, that some people still haven’t learned there are more important things in life than financial gain?”
Georgiou recognized the kind of hurt that lurked behind Pike’s thwarted idealism. His was the soul of an explorer who had been forced too many times to shed blood and lose people under his command. His soul wounds, she imagined, were likely quite similar to her own. She hoped he could share her solace in good-natured cynicism.
“Looking back on my lifetime of travels,” she said to him, “I am forced to conclude the universe has only two true constants: entropy and selfishness.”
As she had hoped, her observation drew a half smile from Pike. “Don’t give up hope,” he said. “Selfishness will go away once the universe runs out of sentient beings.”
“I’m not so sure.” She noted the incredulity in his sidelong glance, and added, “Trust me, Captain. Selfishness always seems to find a way.”
29
* * *
None of the other diners in the Enterprise’s officers’ mess had seemed to notice that Spock had not touched his plo-meek soup in nearly a quarter of an hour. He sat alone at a table in the corner of the room, spoon in hand, eyes downcast. Had anyone cared to spare him more than a moment’s attention, they might have thought he was staring at his soup. In fact, his focus lay far beyond the plain white bowl on a tray; his thoughts were light-years distant, on Vulcan, and decades into his own past, reflecting on a childhood he had never fully understood until now.
I had never been so arrogant as to think I understood my parents, he ruminated. But to realize I had misjudged them so unfairly . . . is troubling. On what other matters have I let my personal experiences cloud my logic? Who else have I judged and found wanting in some respect, without taking the time to truly know them?
He paused his reflections when he perceived the approach of Commander Una. She carried a tray on which was set a plate of vegetarian casserole and a mug of steaming green tea whose gentle aroma Spock detected as Una sat down across from him. He set down his spoon as he greeted her. “Good afternoon, Commander.”
“Mister Spock. You’re looking well.”
“Most kind.”
Una dug into her lunch and savored the first bite with closed eyes. After a sip of tea to clear her palate, she noted his half-full bowl of soup. “Not as hungry as you thought?”
Spock set the tray aside. “Apparently not.”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“To the best of my knowledge, I am in good health.”
She reacted to his answer with mock suspicion, then smiled and resumed her own lunch. Between bites she said, “I read your report about the trials inside the Juggernaut. It sounds as if we’re lucky to still have you with us.”
Recollecting the events of the previous day, Spock found he did not share Una’s opinion. “I do not think luck was a relevant variable. If you read my post-mission analysis—”
“I read it,” Una cut in, exercising the privilege that came with her rank and billet. “Pretty compelling stuff.” She fixed him with a searching stare. He wondered for a moment whether she had deduced somehow that he had omitted from his report any mention of the Juggernaut’s final challenge, or of the mind-meld that had been require
d to overcome it. Then Una sat back and smiled at him. “You seem different since you got back.”
Her assertion aroused Spock’s curiosity. “In what regard?”
“You seem . . . I don’t know. Older? No—calmer than you did before.” She tilted her head as she continued to study him and collect her thoughts. “You present yourself in a way that feels more centered. Better balanced.” Her smile broadened to a grin. “You have gravitas now.”
He cocked one eyebrow as he contemplated the ways in which he might interpret her remarks. He found it acceptable that most such permutations yielded positive impressions. With a polite lowering of his chin, he said, “Thank you, Commander.”
“So,” Una said, “do I have Lieutenant Burnham to thank for this transformation?”
“I will admit that getting to know her proved, for me, to be a path to self-knowledge.”
“How so?” Una’s question sounded more like friendly interest than a debriefing.
Spock steepled his fingers in front of himself while he considered his reply. “There is an irony, I think, in the way that our lives have mirrored each other. She is a human who has strived since childhood to live by the codes of Vulcan stoicism, whereas I, a Vulcan—”
“Half-Vulcan,” Una corrected.
He pressed on without acknowledging her verbal edit. “I have long chafed against the limitations of Vulcan philosophy and social custom. All those things I turned my back upon by leaving Vulcan, she embraced by going to school there for over a dozen years. And yet . . . we both have found our way here, to Starfleet. And, for one brief moment, to each other.”
Perhaps sensing the personal nature of the unfolding conversation, Una leaned closer across the table and lowered her voice. “What kind of a connection did you find with her?”
He answered quietly. “As I told the captain yesterday, she is a friend of my family. What I did not say was that she was, for many years, a ward of my parents. Though it is embarrassing for me to admit this, a sibling rivalry, of sorts, had long existed between us.” He paused and remembered those bitter, lonely times in his youth. “It is only now, after getting to know her better, that I realized she and I have both, each in our own way, been disappointments to Sarek. And that we likely will never fulfill the expectations he holds for us.”
“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Una said. “Children should strive to grow beyond their parents, not just try to conclude their unfinished business.”
“Most wise, Commander.” He stood and picked up his tray. “If you’ll excuse me—”
“Won’t you stay and eat with me?”
“I regret that I cannot. But I will see you tomorrow morning on the bridge.”
A forgiving smile. “See you then.”
He nodded in recognition of her polite release, and then he returned his tray and bowl of half-eaten soup to the matter reclamator in the mess hall’s bulkhead. No one else noted him as he passed by on his way out, nor did anyone pay him any mind as he walked alone and silent through the corridors of the Enterprise.
He returned to his quarters, and after he was inside he locked the door. Behind his new and improved mask of logic, he was plagued by his unquiet mind. He had admitted to Una the strange connection that he and Burnham had shared in Sarek . . . but he had been unable to broach the painful topic of his mother, and the long-buried feelings that the mind-meld with Burnham had resurrected and inflamed.
I have never regretted disappointing my father, Spock brooded. But to know that I caused my mother such pain by shutting her out, by obeying my father when he told me to deny, even to myself, the boundless quality of my love for her . . . I cannot forgive him for that. How can I?
He remembered the mind-meld, Burnham’s memories of being cradled in Amanda’s protective embrace—and in that moment he knew the sting of envy.
What I would not have given, he realized, what I would not give even now, to feel the courage in my mother’s love that Michael got to know for so long . . .
His Vulcan indoctrination reasserted itself with cold, intractable vengeance. This is not our way, he castigated himself. A Vulcan does not wallow in emotion, in nostalgia. To fixate upon the past is neither productive nor logical.
It took all of his mental training, all of his discipline, to deny the truth he had been shown. With terrible effort but no admission of regret, he did what he had so long ago been conditioned to do, and buried all of Burnham’s memories of Amanda.
Because it needs to be done.
Because this is our way.
Because I . . . am a Vulcan.
30
* * *
Brevity and menace. That was what Burnham read between the lines of the captain’s summons. The order had come in writing: Report to my ready room at 14:30. No explanation. No agenda. Just a simple order, a place and a time. The rest Georgiou had left to Burnham’s imagination.
Don’t anticipate, Burnham told herself as the turbo-lift carried her to the Shenzhou’s bridge. Expect nothing. Ground yourself in the now. Commit to nothing but the truth.
Her attempt to comfort herself with Vulcan mantras learned in childhood proved less than successful. As the lift car neared the bridge, Burnham felt her stomach clench, as if the organ could literally tie itself in knots through nothing more than the misdirected force of anxiety.
She’s going to demote me. Burnham tried to ignore the nagging voice of her insecurities. Did her best to hold her chin high and project poise and confidence. But her mind had become a sea of doubts, one in which she now felt adrift.
The lift doors parted. Burnham stepped onto the Shenzhou’s bridge. Outside the main viewport stretched the curve of Sirsa III’s northern hemisphere. Around the spacious underslung command deck worked teams of engineers and computer technicians. They labored in small groups, rebuilding consoles damaged or destroyed during the fight against the Juggernaut.
Ensign Weeton, the bridge’s engineering liaison, supervised the repairs; Lieutenant Saru had the conn. The Kelpien second officer looked up and noted Burnham’s arrival. As ever, Saru’s leathery visage was a cipher, betraying nothing of his inner state. Without a word to Burnham or anyone else, he turned his attention to a report on a slate handed to him by Ensign Connor.
Burnham turned right and made her way along the aft upper level of the bridge to the ready room’s entrance. She checked the ship’s chrono. It was 14:29. The captain was a stickler for precision when it came to punctuality. Arriving early for a scheduled meeting was just as likely to earn one a rebuke as showing up late. Counting down the final seconds, Burnham tried to tune out the sour bile creeping up her throat and the nauseated sensation in her gut.
The chrono flipped to 14:30, and Burnham pressed the visitor signal. Right away she had the captain’s response, via the door’s comm speaker: “Come.”
Georgiou’s invitation caused the doors in front of Burnham to part. Burnham stepped inside the ready room, then pivoted to her right. She heard the doors close behind her as she walked to within a stride of the captain’s desk. “You asked to see me, Captain.”
“I did.” Georgiou tented her hands in front of her, then reclined her chair a few degrees. “Computer: privacy.” At once the transparent panels in the ready room’s doors frosted an opaque off-white—a change that heightened Burnham’s mounting concern about this meeting.
The captain studied Burnham, but said nothing for several seconds. Then she glanced at the holographic display projected above part of her desk. “I read your after-action report. I have to say, it makes an impression. Alien riddles and deathtraps, all while racing against a deadline. Had I not corroborated your report with Mister Spock’s, I might have dismissed yours as being a touch self-serving. But his account supports yours—and in a few cases, gives you credit that you refused to give yourself.” She sat forward and turned off her holovid terminal. “But I think you know as well as I do that I didn’t ask you here to debrief you about your op on the Juggernaut.”
Do
n’t anticipate. Don’t assume. Don’t volunteer.
“Might I ask then, Captain, precisely what you do wish to discuss?”
“The sequence of events that led up to your mission on the Juggernaut,” Georgiou said. “Specifically, the moment you decided to step outside of the chain of command and open a back channel to Mister Spock on the Enterprise.”
“I thought we had already spoken about this.”
“We did. We’re going to talk about it again. What were you thinking when you made that decision? And were you aware that you were subverting the chain of command?”
The adversarial shift in the conversation suited Burnham; at least now she knew why she was here and what to expect. “I assessed the situation on the bridge at that time as being overly emotional,” she said, “and based on your actions and those of Captain Pike, I thought it likely to result in a violent escalation that could result in one Starfleet vessel firing upon another. Establishing contact with an officer of a cooler disposition on the Enterprise seemed warranted. Given the potential repercussions that might have resulted from such a conflict, I judged that my transgression would in fact constitute the least serious breakdown of military order and morale.”
“Interesting,” Georgiou said. “Now let me ask you this: Why contact Spock? Was it merely a matter of convenience, as you said, because a subchannel to his duty station had been left active? Couldn’t you then have used that same channel to hail Commander Una? She’s well known to have a calm and rational manner.”
It was a reasonable point, one for which Burnham had only the weakest refutation. “My decision to reach out to Spock was driven, at least in part, by time pressure. That said, I will concede that I was partial to contacting Spock because of our tenuous familial connection. Though it would be a mistake to have described us as ‘close,’ I had hoped that the shared elements in our personal histories might facilitate a quick establishment of trust.”
